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Glossary of Key Terms

This report will discuss identities and terms that may be
unfamiliar to some readers:

We use gender identity
to refer to a person's internal, deeply felt sense of being male or
female, or something other than or in between male and female; gender
expression refers to the external characteristics and behaviors which
societies define as “masculine” or
“feminine”—including such attributes as dress,
appearance, mannerisms, speech patterns, and social behavior and
interactions.

Transgender people are
people whose gender identity or gender expression differs from the
physical characteristics (or “sex”) of their body at birth.
Understanding their experiences means recognizing how gender is not
the same as biological sex. Biological sex is the classification of
bodies as male or female on the basis of biological factors, including
hormones, chromosomes, and sex organs. Gender describes the social
and cultural meanings attached to ideas of “masculinity” and
“femininity.” In this report “transgender” is used
as an umbrella term to include transsexual, travesti, and
transgender people.

A Transsexual is
someone who has undergone or is in the process of undergoing hormone
therapies and the complex of cosmetic and reconstructive procedures usually
known as sex reassignment surgery (SRS) so that their physical sex
corresponds to their internal gender identity.

Transphobia is fear of
and prejudice toward transgender people based on the expression of their
gender identity, or their contravention of cultural and social norms of
gender.

Travesti is a word used in Latin America to
describe someone who was designated “male” at birth at birth
and whose gender identity is female; a travesti may decide to alter
their body or not.

I. Summary

Two policemen grabbed me and put me in a car and punched me
in the face. They took us to the [Manchén] police station and shoved us
into the cells.... From the moment they pulled us out of the car at the station
till they got us inside, they hit us and dragged us all. When we got there and
while they put our names in a book, they pushed us to the floor, and hit our
faces and hit us with batons. They also tried to push us down the stairs. They
called us culeros [faggots]. On the way to the cell one of them [police officers]
broke a broomstick against my back.

— Joshua, age 19, Tegucigalpa, December 5, 2008

In June 2008, Honduras supported a Resolution on Human
Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity unanimously adopted by the
General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS). Honduras, with
the rest of the OAS, expressed its concern over violence faced by people
because of their sexual orientation or gender identity and made a public
commitment to end it.

In June 2009, Honduras is hosting the 39th General
Assembly of the OAS in San Pedro Sula under the theme “Toward a Culture
of Non-Violence.” In the proposed draft resolution, the states declare
their commitment “to promote, within a framework of the rule of law, a
culture of peace and non-violence” and specifically note “the
importance of adopting measures necessary to prevent, impede, and punish
violence ... against women, and groups in vulnerable situations.”

While Honduran authorities have been prompt in signing
international agreements pledging to curb violence and protect vulnerable
groups, attacks on transgender people—often targeted because their looks
and demeanor challenge prevailing sex-role stereotypes—continue to be
commonplace in the country.

Nearly every transgender person Human Rights Watch
interviewed during research in Honduras in late 2008 and early 2009 spoke of
harassment, beatings, and ill treatment at the hands of police. And
bias-motivated attacks on transgender individuals by private actors are
endemic. At least 17 travestis have been killed in public places in
Honduras since 2004; many more have been beaten, stabbed, or shot.

Transgender people also spoke of police inaction and failure
to investigate cases that they have registered with the police.

The problems begin with Honduran law itself. Provisions of
one of the key laws governing policing in Honduras, the Law on Police and
Social Affairs (Ley de Policía y de Convivencia Social), are vaguely
worded and all but invite arbitrary enforcement by the police.

Article 99 of the law mentions categories of people that
police can arrest as “vagabonds”; these include “street
people, scoundrels, street prostitutes, drug addicts, drunkards, and
gamblers.” Article 142 gives police the authority to arrest anyone who “exhibits
total nudity or goes against modesty, proper conduct and public morals ... and
disturbs the neighbors’ tranquility with their immoral conduct.” The
law does not give further explanation of these terms. No jurisprudence exists
to detail the understanding of them.

As this report documents, police often use these provisions
to justify harassing and arbitrarily arresting transgender people. The
provisions also encourage arrests by Honduran police of transgender people
engaged in sex work, itself not a crime under Honduran law.

Honduras has an obligation under international law to apply
its laws in an impartial and non-discriminatory manner. Courts in other Latin
American countries, like Colombia and Argentina, have struck down comparable
laws on the grounds that concepts like “public morals” are too
vague and invite discriminatory treatment.

Another factor contributing to ongoing violence against
transgender people is impunity. Inefficiency and ineffectiveness in police
investigations runs like a thread through all Honduran criminal investigations
but they are a particular problem in cases involving violence against
transgender people. We are aware of no successful prosecutions of police
accused of violence against transgender people over the past five years in Honduras.
No one has been prosecuted for any of the 17 murders of transgender people.

When cases are not properly investigated and perpetrators
are not adequately punished, the government sends a message to society that it
condones violence. It also sends a message to victims that initiating
complaints will not result in convictions and redress. State inaction in
response to attacks on transgender people in Honduras feeds the violence, and
encourages discrimination against them by state and non-state actors.

The government of Honduras should ensure that all attacks
against members of the transgender community are investigated and the
perpetrators brought to justice. The National Bureau for Criminal Investigation
(Dirección Nacional de Investigación Criminal, DNIC) and the
Office of the Attorney General should respond effectively, efficiently, and
without prejudice to claims by transgender people. The Ombudsman’s office
should provide follow-up on these cases and continue to be a forthright voice
in support of transgender, lesbian, gay, and bisexual (TLGB) people in
Honduras.

By supporting the OAS Resolution on Human Rights, Sexual
Orientation, and Gender Identity in 2008,Honduras made a commitment
to protecting transgender people, which should now be matched by specific
actions. Honduras prides itself on its young democracy. As such it should
reaffirm equality, non-discrimination, and the promotion and protection of
human rights for all its people. Transgender people in Honduras repeatedly told
Human Rights Watch that all they wanted was for people to see and treat them as
human beings. It is the international obligation of the Honduran state to
ensure that this happens, and to act upon its commitments made in the OAS
General Assembly.

Key Recommendations

Honduras’ specific public commitments to ending
violence on the grounds of gender identity and expression should translate into
concrete actions that diminish violence against transgender people.

Honduras should end violence against transgender people by
law enforcement officers and ensure investigations and prosecutions of state
and non-state perpetrators of violence against transgender people.

Honduras should repeal provisions of the Law on Police and
Social Affairs that penalize public conduct on arbitrary and vaguely defined
grounds. Authorities should send a clear message to all law enforcement
institutions that violence against transgender people, as well as gay, lesbian,
and bisexual people, will not be tolerated. Honduras should also conduct independent,
impartial, and effective investigations into the general phenomenon of this
violence and into specific allegations of police brutality, extortion, and
ill-treatment against transgender people, leading to the identification and
prosecution of the perpetrators.

Honduras should ensure full respect for and protection of the human rights
of transgender people in police stations when they are arrested.

Honduras should guarantee protection against cruel and
inhuman treatment of transgender people in police stations. The government
should ensure that transgender people, if arrested, are registered under their
chosen and their legal name at the police stations and assure that they are
placed in facilities appropriate to their needs. The Office of the Attorney
General, as well as non-governmental organizations that document violence in
detention settings, should pay special attention to the vulnerabilities of
transgender people.

Honduras should enact legislation that provides specific protections on the
grounds of sexual orientation, and gender identity and gender expression.

Anti-discrimination legislation that specifically identifies
the people it is intended to protect is often more effective than broadly
worded legislation that needs to be interpreted to provide such protections.
Honduras should include gender identity and expression and sexual orientation
as grounds for non- discrimination, including by passing comprehensive
anti-discrimination legislation that specifically includes these as protected categories.

Methods

This report is based on research conducted during two
two-week field visits to Honduras in December 2008 and in February 2009, as
well as prior and subsequent research, including phone interviews. Overall,
Human Rights Watch conducted in-depth interviews with 35 people who were
victims of or eyewitnesses to discrimination and physical violence targeting
transgender people, in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, and La Ceiba, the three
major cities in Honduras. Human Rights Watch interviewed other victims who did
not want their stories to be included in the report for security reasons. Human
Rights Watch also interviewed the Honduran minister of security, leading
officers in the Office of the Attorney General, and five high ranking police
officials in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, as well as United Nations
officials, human rights NGO leaders and activists, and academics.

The names of some interviewees and certain identifying
information have been withheld at their request to protect their privacy and
safety.

Interviewees were identified largely with the assistance of
the Honduras nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) Unidad Color Rosa (Collective
TTT) in San Pedro Sula, which provides information and services to transgender
people, and the Tegucigalpa-based Lesbian Collective Cattrachas. All documents
cited in this report are either publicly available or on file with Human Rights
Watch.

The report focuses on transgender people, in particular
male-to-female (MTF) transgender individuals, because of their particular
vulnerability to police abuse and violence. Human Right Watch interviewed one
self-identified female-to-male (FTM) transgender person, who stated that he had
not had problems with the police. Human Rights Watch attempted to locate other
FTM transgender people, but without avail. This report does not address human
rights abuses targeting lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities, as such
violations merit separate and distinct treatment. A Human Rights Watch
researcher fluent in Spanish conducted all of the interviews.

II. Background

Transgender people in Honduras are under fire everywhere. In
a country where poverty and violence are endemic, the transgender community is
at steady risk of abuse and harassment. A culture of deep-rooted patriarchy and
religious conservatism creates an atmosphere of intolerance that many times
breeds violence. Laws in place are not enough to protect transgender people: in
some cases, the laws promote harassment.

Honduras has an estimated population of nearly 7.6 million
people.[1]
Approximately half of the population (3.5 million) lives in urban areas.[2]
According to the national Poverty Reduction Information System (Sistema de
Información de la Estrategia para la Reducción de la Pobreza,
SIERP), approximately 65 percent of the population is poor and 45 percent live
in extreme poverty.[3]

Honduras has extremely high rates of violence, including
many recorded cases of violence committed by the police. The Violence
Observatory of the National Autonomous University in Honduras puts the homicide
rate at 57.9 per 100,000 inhabitants (by comparison, the murder rate in
Guatemala is 45 per 100,000 and in New York City, seven per 100,000).[4]
The Observatory also registered 6,609 cases of physical injury. In 378 of the
recorded cases of physical injury, the aggressors were members of the police.

According to the Honduras-based Center for the Prevention,
Treatment, and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and their Families (El Centro
para la Prevención de la Tortura, CPTRT), between 2006 and 2008, police
ill-treated 70 percent of the people they detained. The report also found that
99 percent of the detainees are not allowed to make a phone call, denying their
right under the law.[5]

In 2001, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary
or arbitrary executions visited Honduras. The Rapporteur received information
about the murders of at least five transgender people in San Pedro Sula and the
killings of over 200 members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
(LGBT) communities between 1991 and 2001. He noted the lack of investigations
into the patterns of abuse. Honduran officials did not respond to his report[6]
In 2005 the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women sent several urgent
appeals to Honduras related to attacks on and killings of transgender people.
Officials never responded.[7]

Domestic NGOs have also reported on the violence transgender
people face in Honduras. In a 2004 shadow report on Honduras’ compliance
with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the
Center for Human Rights Research and Promotion (Centro de Investigación
y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, CIPRODEH) documented regular raids
against and detention of LGBT people and transgender people in sex work as a violation
of article 2(1) of the ICCPR.[8]
In 2006, in shadow reports to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), various
national and international human rights organizations also pointed to
violations of the rights of transgender people.[9]

International and national bodies, as well as this report,
confirm that in Honduras transgender people are constant victims of violence at
the hands of the police as well as private actors. Such abuses take place in an
atmosphere of general violence in Honduras, where approximately 90 percent of
violations by the police are not investigated.[10] The violence and
absence of thorough investigations into attacks have a particular impact on
transgender people, who already face marginalization and social stigma.
“The community is terrified,” said Indyra Mendoza, a lesbian
activist working closely with the community, after the latest death of a
transgender activist.[11]
“They [transgender people] do not trust the police or the judicial
system.”[12]

Relevant Domestic laws

The substantial power and discretion given to the police in
provisions of the 2002 Law on Police and Social Affairs facilitate police abuse
and arbitrary detentions of transgender people.[13]
All transgender individuals are at risk of police abuse and detention, whether
they engage in sex work or not.[14]
Sex work is not itself illegal in Honduras, but legislation has created grey
areas that police can use to arrest people they believe are
“morally” dubious, and they often include transgender people in
this area. Those engaged in sex work have a compound fear of being prosecuted
on the grounds of both their identity and of their work. Meanwhile,
article 321 of the Criminal Code, which affords general protections against
discrimination, is rendered ineffective by stigma and by the neglect that
surrounds violence against transgender people.

Law on Police and Social Affairs

According to article 5 of this law, enacted in 2001, police
should “preven[t] and eliminate[e] disturbances to tranquility, public
morality, and proper conduct.”[15]
Article 142 (3) of the law includes specific provisions that give power to the
police power to arrest anyone who “exhibits total nudity or goes against
modesty, proper conduct and public morals ... and disturbs the neighbors’
tranquility with their immoral conduct.”[16]

Article 99 of the law includes sanctions against particular
groups of people—including “vagabonds,” defined as
“people who have no honest known means of living; thus vagabonds include:
street people, scoundrels, street prostitutes, drug addicts, drunkards, and
gamblers.”[17]

There is no further explanation within the law, nor are
there judicial decisions narrowing the definition of what actions go
“against modesty, proper conduct and public morals” or what
behaviors suffice to make someone a “street person,” a
“scoundrel,” a “street prostitute,” a “drug
addict,” a “drunkard” or a “gambler” warranting
arrest.[18]

The Center for the Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation
of Torture Victims and their Families (CPTRT), a human rights group in Honduras,
considers the law unconstitutional because its ambiguous terms and definitions
remove restraints on arbitrary exercise of power, and invite not just arbitrary
but discriminatory application by the police. CPTRT is also concerned that this
law promotes an atmosphere of terror among targeted groups.[19]

The vagueness of the language affords people no
understanding of what acts are prohibited. As shown below, these open-ended
clauses frequently lead to discriminatory and arbitrary treatment of transgender
people, prohibited under international law.[20]

Comparable laws are found in a few other countries in the
region, including in some states in México and some provinces in
Argentina, and in Guatemala.[21]
In other Latin American countries, however, judges have declared similar laws
containing “public morality” and “proper conduct”
infractions unconstitutional, on the grounds that such concepts are too broad
and invite discriminatory treatment.[22]

Many organizations have pointed out the far-reaching effects
of the Law on Police and Social Affairs on the LGBT community, and on
transgender people in particular. The 2006 shadow report to the UN Human Rights
Committee by several national and international organizations included examples
of transgender people arbitrarily detained, harassed, and beaten under these
laws.[23]The Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with and
adjudicates violations under the ICCPR, has found that article 26 of the ICCPR
bars acts and policies that are discriminatory in effect, as well as
those that intend to discriminate.[24] With
regard to El Salvador, for example, the Human Rights Committee expressed
concern over “provisions (such as the local ‘contravention
orders’) used to discriminate against people on account of their sexual orientation.”[25]

These provisions place a group of people in a situation of
greater risk of violence and ill treatment. The UN Committee against Torture,
charged with investigating complaints pertaining to the Convention Against
Torture—ratified by Honduras in 1996—has manifested its concern
over such laws[26]
and called on states to eliminate similar criminal provisions that invite
discriminatory application or enable arrests based on prejudice.[27]
This body has also called for comprehensive and disaggregated data on
complaints of ill treatment and torture by law enforcement personnel, including
on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.[28]

Detentions under the Law on Police and Social Affairs are
ongoing.[29]
In this report, Human Rights Watch documents cases between 2006 and 2009 in
which the police used this law to harass and detain transgender people, who
arguably find themselves at the bottom of the heap of “vulnerable
groups” facing aggression and violence by the police. Male-to-female transgender
people in particular may suffer aggravated and compounded violence when they
are believe to engage in sex work.[30]

The application of the Law on Police and Social Affairs in a
discriminatory manner violates prohibitions on discrimination under articles 2
and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).[31]
It also undermines Honduran legislation that governs police responsibilities
and obligations.

Article 2 of the National Police Organic Law states that
policing in Honduras is “grounded on principles of legality, continuity,
professionalism ... equality, solidarity ... all under the outmost respect for
human rights.”[32]
The same law places obligations and prohibitions on police, and sets forth
consequences for violating them.[33]
The Law on Police and Social Affairs in practice counteracts these protections.
Its vague language furnishes policemen wide leeway to act. The lack of clear
prohibitions and sanctions for the police in this law means police officers
have less fear of consequences.

Honduras Criminal Code

Article 321 of the Criminal Code sanctions with 3-5 years in
prison and a fine between 30,0000 – 50,0000HNL [US$1,500-2,600] anyone
who discriminates on the grounds of “sex, race, age, class, religion,
political or party militancy, disability or any other that harms human
dignity.”[34]
This article does not specifically mention sexual orientation or gender
identity and gender expression as protected grounds. Yet, the inclusion of
“sex” and “human dignity” as protected categories may (in
the light of UN precedents) be interpreted to include sexual orientation and
gender identity.[35]

However, specific inclusion of gender identity and gender
expression (as well as sexual orientation) in the law would make explicit the
protection of transgender people. The UN Human Rights Committee
has urged states to pass anti-discrimination legislation that expressly
includes sexual orientation as a proected status.[36]

Police Overview

Honduras has three main police forces: the National
Preventive Police; the National Bureau for Criminal Investigation (DNIC); and
the Municipal Police. The National Preventive Police is present in cities
throughout Honduras. Its role is to prevent crime and guarantee people’s
individual and collective safety.[37]
Local authorities organize the Municipal Police force, like the one fund in San
Pedro Sula. The Municipal police coordinated at the central level and have
similar responsibilities to the National Preventive Police.[38]
The DNIC is charged with investigation tasks in criminal procedures and is
coordinated by the Office of the Attorney General.[39]

Police receive basic human rights training in the Police
Academy.[40]
Police in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula also told Human Rights Watch that they
regularly receive human rights trainings from various NGOs but suggested that,
in fact, these trainings may have a religious bent that excludes mention of
certain vulnerable groups, including the transgender community. Commissioner
Marthel Valle said he opened the door to sessions with human rights and
Christian groups. “The Christian groups, like Jimmy Hughes Ministries [an
evangelical organization], come to talk to police officers on how to lead a
Christian life. They bring the institution to God. I think it is important to
bring the community, the church, and the police together. The Catholic Church
also comes,” he said.[41]
To our knowledge, the police curriculum does not include any specific training
on gender identity and expression.

The Shape of
Transgender Lives in Honduras

My dad was truly a macho. My every feminine action was
reprimanded by beatings—so instead of receiving love, I received
beatings. My mom gave me support: but only through her voice, because she lived
in the United States. Even though he [my dad] mistreated me, I loved my father.
I understood him. To him his last name meant work and respect and in my mind I
felt guilty and I asked, ‘God, why did you make me this way’? I did
not want to shame my father.

—Fernanda Vallejo, San Pedro Sula, December 18, 2008

We heard accounts similar to Fernanda’s when
interviewing transgender people in Tegucigalpa, La Ceiba, and San Pedro Sula.
Most intervieweestold us they began to feel attracted to men at an
early stage of their lives. During puberty many considered themselves gay, but
it was not until late adolescence that they dared to cross the boundaries of
gender and begin to call themselves travestis. Within the LGBT community
gay men who appear too effeminate are considered “flamboyant gays.”[42]
All of the interviewees told us they transitioned from gay obvio [flamboyant
gay] to travesti. There is a continuum as well as a conceptual
distinction between gay men defined by their sexual orientation on the one
hand, and male-to-female transgender people defined by their gender identity and
expression on the other.

Machismo in Honduras means that men who do not act
like men (or women who are considered somehow not quite women) face hatred and
violence for their refusal to conform to normative gender identities. A
deep-seated misogyny drives this hatred and enforces gender norms. Religious
strictures and legal provisions both reinforce and justify this revulsion and
rejection. Discrimination often begins in the family, and many transgender
people run away from home to escape repressive parents. City life is rarely
easier, though: a cycle of inequalities, economic as well as social, cements
them in second-class status. Nonetheless, transgender people form communities
and families of their own, speak out for their freedoms, and fight for their
rights.

Discrimination and prejudice based on gender identity and
gender expression in Honduras insinuate themselves into transgender
people’s experiences from an early age. They affect many travestis’
ability to access basic goods and services, including education.

In 2005, at the age of 18, Deilin was studying in the Jose
Trinidad Reyes Institute doing her third year in the basic school cycle. In
December 2008 she told us:

I was expelled on the grounds of my sexual orientation [at
the time, she says, she already identified as travesti]. I then
transferred to the Morazanic School. During my first year of business
administration I came out as trans. They first suspended me for six days, then
for 12 days and then indefinitely. I could not graduate. It was through sex
work that I managed to complete my basic studies.[43]

Transgender people also told Human Rights Watch about
pervasive difficulties finding jobs. Many prospective employers refuse to hire
them because they are dressed like women; others fire them if they find out
they violate social norms for dress outside office hours. Many people told us
they had managed to keep a job against the odds as a gay man, but lost
it when they started to identify as transgender. Lisa, 35 years old, worked for
the social security office in San Pedro as an administrative associate.
“I always felt the need to be a woman, but I had to quit my job to
achieve this. Working where I did, I could not keep my identity. The next day
after I quit I dressed like a woman and went out to talonear [Spanish
slang for going out at night to do sex work].[44]

Yet certain kinds of jobs, particularly low-paying service
jobs, offer a marginal niche in which some transgender people can survive. The
restrictive scope of these pigeonholes in turn constrains people’s sense
of their identities. Pía, 18, considers herself a transsexual. Born in
La Ceiba, she came out to her parents two years ago, on the day when she began
dressing like a woman full-time. Pía graduated in accounting but is now
studying to become a hair stylist. “I want to have a beauty salon,”
she told us.[45]
Asked why she wanted to be a stylist and not an accountant, she replied,
“Accounting is not a career that lets me be myself. Beauty work does. If
they see me like this in a bank they will make my life impossible, but not in a
beauty salon,” she explained.[46]
Sasha, dedicated to housework and in a relationship with a taxi driver, with
whom she says would be “married” but for the lack of legal
recognition, agrees with Pía. She also maintains that the state is the
first to discriminate: “You can work in a beauty salon, as interior
designers, as a tailor, a cook or a house wife, but ask for a state job and it
will be impossible to get it. They generalize and see us as vulgar people or sex
workers. There is no work for us.”[47]

For some transgender people, sex work offers more income,
independence, and possibilities than other work; for others, it is the sole
recourse when no other paid employment is possible. Nicole, 28 years old,
travels to San Pedro Sula from her home in another city to do sex work. At home
she dresses like a man, as a sign of respect towards her aunt. “I have
been doing sex work for 10 years. I cannot get a job here for the way I am so I
have to get money from my body and what I am.”[48]

Some transgender people we spoke to say they chose to do sex
work because the narrow possibilities available in a heavily gendered economy
limited their options. Others started to engage in sex work as a means to keep
up their studies or to save for the future. Still others simply felt the
streets were the only place where they could be themselves.[49]
In December 2008, Cynthia Nicole, a leading transgender rights activist
subsequently murdered, told us:

We have the right to work, that right is violated ... We
have to work on the streets. We have the right to education ... We are kicked
out of schools. We are left with one possibility, using our beauty [literally
“bellas virtudes”], to survive in this discriminatory country.[50]

III. Police Abuse and
Violence

Human Rights Watch documented police actions that violated
fundamental human rights protections against torture and cruel, inhuman, and
degrading treatment or punishment and due process. Transgender people in San
Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa reported serious violence – including sexual
and physical assault – as well as extortion of money by members of the
Municipal and the National Preventive Police. Transgender people also reported
that law enforcement officials failed to undertake diligent and
effective investigations and prosecute the perpetrators of these
violations.

International law forbids the use of torture
and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by officials or
persons acting in an official capacity.[51] These
prohibitions apply "not only to acts that cause physical pain but also to
acts that cause mental suffering to the victim,"[52]
including intimidation and other forms of threats.[53]
International law also guarantees the right to liberty and security of the person
and protection from arbitrary detention.[54]

Rape, Assault and
Extortion

Human Rights Watch interviews indicate that, despite express
prohibitions in international and Honduran law, policemen use their power to
demand sex and to extort money from transgender people, often on pain of
violence.[55]

When Human Rights Watch interviewed Patricia in February 2009,
she showed us 5 of 17 scars she said she had received from a recent stabbing by
a police officer.

On December 18 a policeman forced me into his car to have
sex with me. I got into his car and after having oral sex, he told me he wanted
me to penetrate him. I explained to him that I couldn’t be active
[because she was a transsexual] and lifted my skirt. He looked at me and said,
‘You would have been better born a woman!’ I apologized, but he got
really angry. He tried to pull out a gun but I threw myself against him and
fought him with one of his crutches [Patricia later told us the man was using
crutches because he was injured]. My friend Estefania heard what was happening and
screamed for help. A patrol car (MI 106) stopped. The police officers took the
guy out of the car and told him to leave. But that was it.

The next day, the man with the crutches drove again by
CEUTEC [a university], the place where we do sex work. He came close to me and
rolled down the window. I was scared so I said ‘hi.’ He asked me to
come closer. I did and asked him what he wanted. He stabbed me in the neck.

I couldn’t run—I felt I was fainting. I saw two
other people come out of the car. They pushed me in the back seat and took off.
I saw that we were on the road towards Danli [a town south of Tegucigalpa] so I
started to fight back when I felt my strength coming back. He [the main
assailant] stopped, turned around and started to stab me more. I fainted. They
threw me out of the car and left me for dead.

A taxi that was coming the other way picked me up and took
me to the Clipper [a medical center] in El Hato [a neighborhood] and from there
an ambulance took me to Escuela Hospital. Doctors in the hospital said if I had
arrived 5 minutes later, I would have died. They had to put a tube through my
lungs because they were full of blood from the first stabbing.[56]

The man Patricia identified as her attacker, Amado
Rodríguez Borjas, is a member of the police force. “A person like
him should not be in a position like that; he should not be a policeman,”
she concluded.[57]

Diana, 23, told a similar story. “About eight months
ago [May 2008] three police officers stopped me on the street and forced me
into a patrol car. They drove me to a faraway place that I did not recognize.
The officers tore my clothes off; all three beat me and raped me. Then they
left me in the outskirts of the city.”[58]

Most commonly, transgender women told stories of police
forcing them to engage in oral sex. Natalia, 19, recalls a night when a police
officer forced her into a police car and took her near the stadium. “When
we got to the stadium the policeman held a gun against my head and made me suck
him. It was horrible, but thankfully he only beat me and let me go after
stealing my money.”[59]

In 2008, Paola, 18, told Human Rights Watch that police
demanded sex from her several times a month. She told us of a police assault
that very week:

It was last Tuesday. I was working in the Maya [a sex work
area near Hotel Maya]. Around 10:00 p.m. four police officers told me to get in
the patrol car. They started to beat me and asked me to have sex with them.
They wanted me to give them all an oral. I refused. They drove me to the road
that exits the city in the south and they beat me senseless and threw me there
and left. They were wearing police uniforms. I have seen them before but I
don’t know their names because they concealed their badges.[60]

All the interviewees told Human Rights Watch spoke to had at
least one story of police extorting money—from themselves, their clients,
or both. Lisa, 35, who told Human Rights Watch police asked her for sex on
average every couple of weeks, also recounted an example of police extorting money
from her client:[61]

Almost every day [police demand money]. The last time was
last Thursday. I got in the car with a client who gave me 500HNL [US$26] up
front. Around the block, police stopped me and made me get out of the car. They
blackmailed the client and took his money.[62]

Melbin told Human Rights Watch about the last time municipal
police extorted money from her:

Three weeks ago [early December 2008] three police officers
from the municipal police stopped me in the street while I was negotiating with
a client. The police threatened to arrest me if I did not give them something.
What they wanted was money. So I gave them 200 HNL [US$11] and they left me
alone.[63]

Montserrat confirmed this and added,

It’s a routine. It’s always the same thing. We get
in a car and they [the police] follow the car. A few streets later they stop
the car. Police steal our money and then threaten the client. They tell him
they will tell the TV stations that they found him with a trans. Sometimes they
arrest us, sometimes they extort money from us. They [the police] leave us
without money and without a client.[64]

Yet police authorities routinely deny any wrongdoing.
Commissioner Castillo of the National Preventive Police in San Pedro Sula told
Human Rights Watch that his officers could not extort money from or attack
transgender people because they do not have jurisdiction in the places where
transgender people do sex work.[65]
Abel Guerrero, head of the Municipal Police in San Pedro Sula, told Human
Rights Watch, “I will give you my resignation right now if you tell me of
any municipal policeman that has extorted money from them [transgender
people].”

Beatings

Joshua is a 19-year-old who identifies as travesti.[66]
Joshua is not allowed to be herself at home—to wear high heels and a
skirt—so she changes elsewhere before going out at night. Joshua does not
feel safe at home, but she is not safe on the streets either. She recalls a
night that left her immobilized for weeks:

Four months ago [in September 2008], police attacked us
near CEUTEC University [in Tegucigalpa]. It was around 2 a.m. and we were
working. Suddenly five police cars and around 20 policemen appeared from
nowhere. We were eight transgender people doing sex work.

They screamed at us and said they were taking us away. We
showed them our identity cards and yet despite this they took us. Before taking
us, a couple of them did say we could “solve things a different
way.” We told them we did not have any money because we hadn’t
worked yet and that they could take us if they wanted to. Two policemen grabbed
me and put me in a car and punched me in the face.

They took us to the [Manchen] police station and shoved us
into the cells. ... From the moment they pulled us out of the car at the
station till they got us inside, they hit us and dragged us all. When we got
there and while they put our names in a book, they pushed us to the floor, and
hit our faces and hit us with batons. They also tried to push us down the
stairs. They called us culeros.

On the way to the cell one of them [police officers] broke
a broomstick against my back. That guy was not even working. He was in the
police station resting and came down when we arrived. He hit me and roughed up
several of my friends. There were two lockups. We were put in the women’s
one. We were kept all together until they took me to the hospital two hours
later.

At Escuela Hospital they put my back in a cast. I was kept
there two days for checkups. I did not see the police again.

Police never told these eight detainees the reason for their
arrest, nor were they allowed to make a phone call. The transgender people
explained to the officers that they were doing nothing illegal: it made no
difference.

On December 1, 2008, Mónica, 18, stood with a group
of friends behind Diunsa [a store that is also a sex work area], in the city of
San Pedro Sula. At around 8:00 p.m. a police patrol car stopped, carrying five
members of the Municipal Police. “They started beating us with their
batons. I ran away into the Motel El Sauce, but the police continued to beat my
friends. They told us to leave the area because this was not an area for taloneo.”[67]

Police physically assaulted an outreach worker with
the National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS (ASONAPSIDA), in
December 2008.

I was standing in Vatican Street, in front of CEUTEC
[University] in Colonia Palmira [a neighborhood]. Minutes later a police patrol
car (MI79) assigned to the Manchén police station arrived. They asked
for money. I told them I did not have any money. So they grabbed me by the hair
and hit my head against the glass door of the corner building. They hit me
until they broke the glass with my face. They then accused me of trying to
break into the building to steal, and they took me away.

When I arrived at the Manchén Police Station I
begged the police officer in charge to let me make a phone call. He just
ignored me. A couple of hours later they finally took me to the Clipper [an
emergency medical facility] in the October 21st neighborhood. In the
police car they threatened me and told me I would die if I said anything.

At the Clipper, while the police were outside, a nurse let
me use her cell phone. I managed to call a friend who reached Indyra Mendoza,
the coordinator of the Red Lésbica Cattrachas [an organization based in
Tegucigalpa that advocates for the rights of the LGBT community in Honduras].
When we returned to the police station one of the police officers said I was
there for “public scandal,” under the Law on Police and Social
Affairs. I was detained until 11:30 a.m.[68]

Arbitrary Arrests

Depriving individuals of their liberty if they have not been
convicted of a crime, including the pre-trial detention of suspects, should
only be the exception, never the norm, and should take place under regulated
and defined circumstances.[69]
However, the open-ended clauses in the Law on Police and Social Affairs
actively encourage the arbitrary arrest and detention of transgender people
appearing in public.

The interpretation of what the law means by “moral”
is left to the police. Policemen in Tegucigalpa had different views on what
“morality” means. Orlando Ruíz, head of the Manchén
Police Station, said, “Morality is what the Honduras society mandates.
For instance, people cannot wear clothes that are too sexy when going into an
establishment.”[70]
Colonel Galo told Human Rights Watch, “Immorality is when you can see
everything”—when clothes are too revealing. He added, it is
important what kind of body the clothes reveal: “You see how Real
Street is full of women prostitutes[71]
and the police do not arrest them and charge them—because they are not
dressing immorally.”[72]

A high-ranking officer displayed prejudices that presumably
filter down to patrolmen on the street, telling us that “[w]hat happens
with those homosexuals [referring to transgender people] is that they are
robbers and the men they go out with do not want to charge them because they
are ashamed. Most of those homosexuals are robbers, vulgar and ill-mannered.
They do not respect the police. I cannot stand those people in the area.”[73]

Other police officials do not deny that homophobia is rife
among the police force. At the First National Transgender Congress
organized by UNAIDS and several nongovernmental organizations in December 2008,
General Police Commissioner Mirna Suazo said, “in our country, which is a
patriarchal society, police tend to reproduce the roles and stereotypes that
the society and culture has imposed.”[74] Other police
officers also talked about machismo and homophobia as a problem in the
police force.[75]
The Chief of the Metropolitan Police in Tegucigalpa said, “It’s
hard to discuss this [referring to LGBT issues] with officers in lower ranks,
because if one talks about it they assume it’s because, perhaps, one is
like them [that is, one is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender].”[76]

Acknowledging police violence and discrimination against
members of the LGBT community, including transgender people, is a precondition
to ending it. Yet these unusual admissions have not been followed up with any
change to broad provisions of the Law on Police and Social Affairs that invite
abuse, or by any prosecutions of officers who have allegedly engaged in abusive
behavior.

Arrests Based on Prejudice

Dita is a 49-year-old travesti. She told us she has
known she was transgender since she turned 18. Today Dita makes a living
cleaning, ironing, and teaching handicrafts. “I find ways to
survive,” she says. “For Valentines Day I will come up with a card
with a thought and I will sell these things to earn some money.” Dita
studied to be an accountant and has never been a sex worker, yet police
routinely stop her in Tegucigalpa, assuming she is one because of her gender
identity and expression.

Police stop me. They just say, ‘you are from the
Maya’ [a sex work area near Hotel Maya in Tegucigalpa] and they hit me
and shove me into the police car. They take me to the police station. They
disregard my explanations that I am not a sex worker and they just tell me,
‘In with you for 24 hours!’ This happened last three weeks ago
[February 15, 2008]. I was coming from having a beer and I stopped a taxi. I
got in and just as we were going around the park a police officer stopped us.
The policeman screamed and called for backup saying that the taxi driver was my
client and I was trying to steal from him! He took me to the Manchén
police station and left me there for 24 hours.[77]

Police tag human rights defenders with the stigma of sex
work as well.

On May 26, 2007, police stopped Claudia Spellmant, leader of
the Collective TTT and member of the RedLac Trans (a regional network that
works for the protection of transgender people’s rights), as she walked
near the municipal stadium on her way to a concert. The officers accused her of
doing sex work, ignored her explanations, and pushed her into a police patrol
car. They took her and another group of transgender women arrested separately
in the same area to the municipal police station.[78]
The officers told the detainees they had disobeyed instructions to avoid public
places reserved for “normal and decent people.”[79]
They were not charged. While there are no laws or regulations that specify the
“permitted” places to do sex work, police use the broad language of
the Law on Police and Social Affairs to unlawfully target and detain
transgender people.

When researchers asked police authorities about these
arrests, Abel Gamero, director of the Municipal Police in San Pedro Sula said,
“The city has its own governance. There are places where they can [do sex
work] and others where they can’t.”[80]
When asked if this was written in laws or regulations, he said, “No,
these are spoken directives in place because the community asks for
them.”[81]
Gamero remained silent when Human Rights Watch asked how policemen knew a
transgender person was engaging in sex work.

Alejandra, who works in San Pedro Sula with Comunidad Gay
Sampedrana, had an experience similar to that of Spellmant.

About a year ago [February 2008] I was walking on First
Street. I was going to the movies by myself—looking very feminine, with
my handbag, makeup, everything. Four policemen in blue uniforms stopped me.
They told me I was a commercial sex worker. I told them I was not that, I was
only going to the movies. Regardless, they put me in the police car and took me
away. I told them to let me go, that I had to go to work later in the day. I
showed them my identity card and they still said that they were taking me to
the station unless I paid them to let me go. I was scared so I gave them 500HNL
[US$26].[82]

Police prejudice against transgender people may hamper and
interfere in some cases with HIV prevention work. Chichi, a 32-year-old
transgender person, was born in Tegucigalpa and lives there now; she used to
work with Colectivo Violeta on HIV/AIDS prevention for sex workers. In early
2007 police detained her while she was doing outreach work.

That night when we went out to distribute condoms and
information to transgender people doing sex work, the police stopped us and
registered us [asking for their identity cards and body-searching them]. Just
because they saw my blumer [thong], they assumed I was doing sex work
and took me to the police station. I had to stay there until the next day.[83]

IV. Failures to Protect
and Investigate

Honduran authorities have the obligation under international
law to prevent abusive behavior by police and other officials, and to investigate, prosecute, and provide effective remedies when violations
occur.[84]

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has
held that “the State has the obligation to use all the legal means at its
disposal to combat [impunity], since impunity fosters chronic recidivism of
human rights violations and the total defenselessness of victims and their
relatives.”[85]
It is only by investigating, prosecuting, and providing effective remedies that
impunity can be fought.

Officers in Honduras who vigorously enforce provisions of
the Law on Police and Social Affairs that involve vague invocations of morals
are much less stringent in applying laws that place obligations on themselves.[86]
Police regularly fail in providing protection to transgender people.

Failure to investigate crimes is common in Honduras.
According to Amnesty International, the government has yet to resolve the
disappearance of 184 people during the 1980s.[87] According
to human rights organizations such as the Committee for the Defense of Human
Rights (Comité para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos en Honduras,
CODEH), violations of the rights of certain groups, including young people,
women, and people with various vulnerabilities, are less likely to be
investigated than violations of the rights of others.[88]
Our interviews suggest that the cases of transgender people are almost never
investigated.

Prejudices within law enforcement agencies may lead to bias
in police investigations of crimes against transgender people.[89]
Investigative independence may also be at risk when the perpetrators are
members of the police force.[90]

Interviewees routinely told Human Rights Watch that their
claims are not investigated. Police failure to respond undermines access to
justice, because people lose the last shreds of confidence in the system. Some
do not even bother to file complaints any longer.

Failure to Investigate:
Losing Faith in the System

Cynthia, 21 years old, told Human Rights Watch that she
“dresses and feels like a woman” day and night. She recounted how a
police officer, member of the national preventive force, attacked her in
September 2007.

I was on the street and a car stopped next to me at around
10:00 p.m. The man in the car asked how much I charged. I told him that I could
get in and we could negotiate the price while going around the block. We drove
off and I told him I charged 500HNL [US$26]. He said, ok, start with oral sex.
But I told him he had to pay me up front, like everyone else. He did not like
this and got really angry. We started to fight and he took out his gun and
said, “Then I’m going to kill you!” We fought and the gun
discharged. Saying ‘Since I didn’t get you...’ he hit me then
with the back of the gun on the head. I don’t know how, but I manage to
throw myself out of the car. I tried to fix myself up. I walked to my apartment
and then took a taxi to Escuela Hospital.

I remember it was a Monday because the day before my friend
Juliana was attacked by the same man. I still remember the guy. I still see him
around but I hide from him. He is a policeman. That night in the car he showed
me his badge and said ‘I’m a policeman, they cannot do anything to
me—and you’re not worth a penny, anyway.’[91]

Cynthia went to the Prosecutor’s Office in Tegucigalpa
to initiate a claim against her attacker, and provided her testimony. Two years
later, she still has not heard back from the office despite repeated enquiries.[92]
Human Rights Watch has on file the documentation of other 10 other claims
presented before the National Bureau for Criminal Investigation (DGIC) and the
Ombudsman’s Office by transgender people in 2008, of which only one has
an assigned prosecutor.[93]

In early 2004, the LGBT organization Comunidad Gay
Sampedrana in San Pedro Sula sent a letter to the Office of the Attorney
General asking for information on the status of investigations into over 200
crimes against LGBT individuals.[94]
The Human Rights Unit of the Office of the Attorney General referred the letter
to the Common Crime Unit of the Attorney General on September 17, 2004.
Comunidad Gay Sampedrana never got a response.[95] Similarly, Red
Lésbica Cattrachas, a group based in Tegucigalpa, asked on May 31, 2008,
for a meeting with Minister of Security Jorge Alberto Rodas to discuss violence
against transgender people and the lack of investigations by police. It never
received a response.[96]

LGBT activists recognize that there is a general
sluggishness on the part of state agencies to respond to citizen’s
communications, yet in cases concerning the LGBT community there is no response
at all. The unresponsiveness to communications sent by these organizations
suggests a lack of will by the state of Honduras to broach the subject of the
violence faced by LGBT communities. When asked why so few claims filed by LGBT
people result in prosecutions, lawyer Grisel Amaya, a member of the Office of
the Attorney General in charge of the Women’s Unit, responded, “The
problem within the judiciary is that if a man comes in dressed as a women, this
person is not taken seriously.”[97]

Cynthia Nicole, a prominent human rights/transgender rights
defender, 32 years old when we spoke to her, agreed with Amaya. She said,

I have filed reports many times. None of the claims have
had a response. Here in Honduras it seems that cases mount, and authorities
follow up only on cases with the strong backing of people high up. The cases
from minorities like us are not taken into account. They put them away and
archive them. I have never seen someone go to prison [for such a case]. Police
are friendly to me, but when we talk about resolving cases, well, they
don’t. Our human rights abuses are not a priority for them.[98]

Unknown assailants killed Cynthia Nicole a few weeks later
on January 9, 2009.[99]
The process is in the first phase of investigation by the new National Bureau
for Criminal Investigation (DNIC); no suspects have been caught. A member of
the DNIC told us that an internal obstacle in the investigation of this and
other crimes against transgender people is “the number of homophobes in
it [the DNIC].”[100]

The fact that Cynthia Nicole’s murder is even being
investigated, according to Sandra Ponce, is “above average for violence
against transgender people.”[101]
This is consistent with our findings: none of the other victims we spoke to
were aware of active investigations into their cases, including those who
initiated cases with the prosecutor’s office.

Failure to Protect:
Police Inaction

Unknown men attacked Diana, a 23-year-old trans girl,
as she calls herself, a few days before we interviewed her in 2008. Policemen
stood by and watched.

Last Tuesday, [December 9] I was standing behind Diunsa [a
store outside the center of San Pedro Sula where transgender people do sex
work] at around 10:00 p.m. The policemen were half a block away from me. I was
standing on the street when a bus passed by. A group of men got off the bus and
started to throw rocks at me. I started to run. One of the guys followed me
with a gun, took my purse, and ran away. The police were standing near Hotel El
Sauce. I started to scream asking for their help, but they just stood there! I
didn’t file a complaint because I have done so before and it leads
nowhere. Another time, around three years ago, I got to the police station full
of blood and they did not even listen to me. So what is the point?[102]

Diana is not alone in her doubts about of the police’s
willingness to protect her or punish those who attack her. Bibi, now 23,
started working as a sex worker at 16. She told us she is used to abuse and
violence, and to lack of response from the police. The latest incident of
brutality in November 2008, helps explain why.

I work near the Maya Hotel. That night a white car stopped
next to me. I talked to the guy and got in the car. As we drove off, the guy
was nice to me, but then he got aggressive. He grabbed me by the hair and since
I had a few drinks I couldn’t react. He started to get really violent. At
some point he stopped the car and I tried to climb out. I got the door open as
he got out for a second, but he then climbed back in again with a gun in his
hand. He held me by the hair. He was really angry and really violent. Then I
heard a shot! I fell on the sidewalk and I saw him drive away. My leg started
to shudder and the more I moved, the more blood came out. I started to scream
for help. A police car stopped by, they looked at me, and left.[103]

Cynthia, her friend and also a transgender sex worker, saw
the shooting:

I saw a guy in a white car with shaded windows talking to
Bibi. At that moment I got in another car with a client. Minutes later I heard
a shot. I immediately got out of the car. When I went back I saw Bibi on the
ground I heard her screaming and rushed to get the police. I went to the
nearest police station [a women’s police station], but they didn’t
do anything.[104]

We asked Bibi why she thought the police did not stop.
“I don’t know why,” she said. “Indifference to someone
like me, I guess.” Bibi was relieved that the man only shot her once. She
spent 16 days in Escuela Hospital, had surgery, and a cast put on her leg. Bibi
decided it would be useless to file a claim against her attacker—or
against the police officers who refused to assist her.

Similarly, Mónica, 18, was still shaken up by the
latest attack behind Diunsa, where she usually works.

A client almost killed me. He wanted sex without a condom
and I told him [I wouldn’t do it] without a condom. He took out a gun and
put it against my head. So what I did was to give him the condom and I told him
to read it to show him the risks for him and for me. In the meantime I took my
shoes off and when I got the chance I opened the door and ran away. He shot at
me but didn’t get me. I recall we were in a dark place far away from the
city. It was a real trauma that time. I was so scared I did not go out for two
months because of the trauma.[105]

When we asked her whether she had gone to the police, she
said she felt it would be pointless. She mentioned the names of five other
friends who had filed complaints that had had no outcome.

V. Specific Recommendations

To the Government of
Honduras

On Law Enforcement

Revise the Law on Police and Social Affairs
to eliminate ill-defined references to “morality” as well as other
vague language that can be used to justify the discriminatory targeting of
transgender people. Law enforcement officials should not use the Law on Police
and Social Affairs as a justification to arrest transgender people who do
legally permitted sex work.

Publicly condemn ill-treatment of transgender
people by police and other state agents, as well as extortion, unlawful use of
force, and other abuses.

Conduct independent, impartial, and
effective investigations into acts of extortion and unlawful use of force
against transgender people by Honduran law enforcement officials. Initiate
administrative and criminal investigations against officials found to have
engaged in or condoned violence against or extortion of transgender people.

Issue a written directive from the Ministry
of Security to all law enforcement institutions reaffirming that violence,
abuse, and discrimination based on gender identity or expression, as well as
sexual orientation, will not be tolerated and will be sanctioned.

Improve the registration of detainees at
police stations to avoid ill-treatment of those detained, including by ensuring
that transgender people can be registered under either their chosen or their
legal names.

Guarantee that, whenever detained,
transgender people are placed in facilities appropriate to their needs,
including in police lockups. Cases should be assessed on an individual basis,
with criteria developed in consultation with representatives of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender civil society actors, rather than through a blanket
policy.

Ensure respect for and protection of the
human rights of detained transgender people, including their right to access to
a lawyer, their right to a phone call, and protection against cruel and
inhumane treatment and freedom from discrimination and violence.

Provide regular training to law enforcement
officials, in particular to the police, the National Department of Criminal
Investigation, and all staff of the Office of the Attorney General, on human
rights issues in general and in particular on issues of gender identity, gender
expression, and sexual orientation.

Guarantee due process for transgender people
as well as lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, and ensure that their treatment
by the police does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender
identity and expression.

Establish protocols for the treatment of
lesbian, gay, and bisexual people by the police based on international human
rights standards.

Conduct effective and prompt investigations
into all reports of violence against transgender people.

On Gender Identity and
Expression

Reform the civil law code and the Law on
People’s National Registry to institute simple, non-surgically based
procedures allowing transgender people to change their identity card legally to
reflect their chosen name and lived gender.

On Nondiscrimination
and Equality

Adopt a comprehensive law on
non-discrimination based on international human rights standards, including
sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, that would enhance and
specify the protections of article 321 of the Penal Code, and that would create
an independent body to promote non-discrimination and equality and monitor
compliance with this law by public and private actors.

Develop public education programs using the
media, public events, and school curricula to address the harmful effects of
stereotyped gender roles and the importance of non-discrimination based on
gender, gender identity and expression, and sexual orientation.

To the International
Donor Community

Ensure that all development programs that
receive financial support address the specific needs and vulnerabilities of
transgender and lesbian, gay, and bisexual communities, and promote the
protection of people based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual
orientation against police and other abuse.

To the United Nations

Request that the Panama Regional Office of
the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights monitor the human rights
situation in Honduras, including state and non-state violence and other abuses
based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.

To Honduran
Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs)

Co-operate with transgender and lesbian,
gay, and bisexual people’s organizations in monitoring and mainstreaming
LGBT issues to ensure full respect for their human rights.

Include issues of gender identity, gender
expression, and sexual orientation in shadow reports to the United Nations.

Acknowledgments

This report was written and researched by Juliana Cano
Nieto, researcher in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights
Program at Human Rights Watch. It was reviewed and edited by Scott Long,
director of the program, and Dipika Nath, researcher in the program; Rebecca
Schleifer, advocate in the Health and Human Rights Program; Angela Heimburger,
researcher in the Women’s Rights Division; Maria McFarland, researcher in
the Americas Division; Clive Baldwin, legal advisor; and Joe Saunders, deputy
program director. Grace Choi, publications director; and Anna Lopriore, photo
editor, provided assistance with report design and publication. Fitzroy
Hepkins, mail manager, made possible the production of the report. Jessica
Ognian, associate for the LGBT Rights Program prepared this report for
publication. This report was translated into Spanish by Lina María
Céspedes.

A number of experts and nongovernmental organizations in
Honduras collaborated with this research. Human Rights Watch gratefully
acknowledges Asociación Arcoiris; Cattrachas; Colectivo Abogacía
por la Diversidad; Colectivo Feminista Mujeres Universitarias; Colectivo
TTT—Unidad Rosa; Colectivo Violeta; Comunidad Gay Sampedrana; and
Kukulcán for their invaluable assistance and courageous work. We are
also deeply indebted to the following people for their support during the
process of researching, drafting, and publishing this report: Claudia
Spellmant, Justus Eisfeld, Indyra Mendoza, Thalia, and others who do not wish
to be specifically named.

Finally, we are deeply grateful to all those transgender people
in Honduras who shared their personal experiences with us.

Appendix: Legal
Standards

The United Nations
System

Legal Precedents Relating to Sexual Orientation and Gender
Identity

Various UN bodies, such as the Human Rights Committee and
the Special Procedures pay particular attention to issues of gender
identity.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the question of torture and
other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment notes that,
generally, discrimination against “sexual minorities” affects them
when dealing with the police and other authorities and deters them from
speaking out against abuses.

[D]iscriminatory attitudes towards members of sexual
minorities can mean that they are perceived as less credible by law enforcement
agencies or not fully entitled to an equal standard of protection, including
protection against violence carried out by non-State agents. Members of sexual
minorities, when arrested for other alleged offences or when lodging a
complaint of harassment by third parties, have reportedly been subjected to
further victimization by the police, including verbal, physical and sexual
assault, including rape. Silencing through shame or the threat by law
enforcement officials to publicly disclose the birth sex of the victim or his
or her sexual orientation (to family members, among others) may keep a
considerable number of victims from reporting abuses.[106]

Moreover, the Special Rapporteur has specifically referred
to gender identity and harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
people:

The Special Rapporteur has received information according
to which members of sexual minorities have been subjected, inter alia, to
harassment, humiliation and verbal abuse relating to their real or perceived
sexual orientationor gender identity and physical abuse, including rape
and sexual assault. He notes with concern that, according to the information
received, the rape of a man or of a male-to-female transsexual woman is often
subject to the lesser charge of “sexual assault”, which carries
lighter penalties than the more serious crime of rape in a number of countries.
It is also reported that male-to-female transsexual women have been beaten
intentionally on their breasts and cheek-bones which had been enhanced by
silicone implants, causing the implants to burst and as a result releasing
toxic substances into their bodies. Ill-treatment against sexual minorities is
believed to have also been used, inter alia, in order to make sex workers leave
certain areas, in so-called “social cleansing” campaigns, or to
discourage sexual minorities from meeting in certain places, including clubs
and bars.[107]

The Special Rapporteur further notes that members of sexual
minorities are a particularly vulnerable group with respect to torture in
various contexts and that their status may also affect the consequences of
their ill-treatment in terms of their access to complaint procedures or medical
treatment in state hospitals, where they may fear further victimization, as
well as in terms of legal consequences regarding the legal sanctions flowing
from certain abuses. The Special Rapporteur would like to stress that, because
of their economic and educational situation, allegedly often exacerbated or
caused by discriminatory laws and attitudes, members of sexual minorities are
deprived of the means to claim and ensure the enforcement of their rights,
including their rights to legal representation and to obtain legal remedies,
such as compensation.

...

Finally, the Special Rapporteur notes and shares the views
of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on human rights
defenders regarding “greater risks ... faced by defenders of the rights
of certain groups as their work challenges social structures, traditional
practices and interpretation of religious precepts that may have been used over
long periods of time to condone and justify violation of the human rights of
members of such groups. Of special importance will be (...) human rights groups
and those who are active on issues of sexuality, especially sexual orientation(...). These groups are often very vulnerable to prejudice, to
marginalization and to public repudiation, not only by State forces but other
social actors.”[108]

The Special Rapporteur also recognizes that a considerable
proportion of the incidents of torture carried out against members of the LGBT
community reflect bias: such individuals often are subjected to violence
of a sexual nature, such as rape or sexual assault, in order to
“punish” them for transgressing gender barriers or for challenging
predominant conceptions of gender roles.[109]

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), which Honduras has signed and ratified, affirms the equality of all
people in articles 2 and 26. In the 1994 case of Nicholas Toonen v Australia,
the UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with and adjudicates
violations under the ICCPR, heard a complaint concerning a “sodomy
law” punishing consensual, adult homosexual conduct in the Australian
state of Tasmania. The Committee held that “sexual orientation” was
a status protected under the ICCPR from discrimination, finding that “the
reference to ‘sex’ in articles 2, paras. 1, and 26 is to be taken
as including sexual orientation.”[110]

The continuum that exists between issues of sexual
orientation and gender identity, discussed earlier in this report, has also
been noted and touched upon by several UN bodies.[111]
Thus, issues concerning gender identity are beginning to be addressed as part
of the larger prohibition on discrimination.

For instance, the UN’s independent expert on minority
issues recognizes that “some individuals within ethnic, religious,
linguistic or national minority groups may experience multiple forms of
discrimination because of other factors including gender, gender expression,
gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age or health status.”[112]
The independent expert thus stated that she would highlight “the
importance of protecting diverse forms of personal expression.”[113]

The Human Rights Committee has also urged states to pass
anti-discrimination legislation that expressly includes sexual orientation and
to include in their constitutions the prohibition of discrimination based on
sexual orientation and gender identity.[114] It has criticized
states’ failure to protect people from sexual-orientation-based violence,
saying in the case of transgender people assaulted in El Salvador that

The Committee expresses concern at the incidents of people
being attacked, or even killed, on account of their sexual orientation (art.
9), at the small number of investigations mounted into such illegal acts, and
at the current provisions (such as the local "contravention orders")
used to discriminate against people on account of their sexual orientation
(art. 26).[115]

In his visit to Guatemala, the UN Rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions found a criminal justice system
that was unable to investigate murders of sexual minorities and others. He
stated that the “State bears responsibility under human rights law for
the many who have been murdered by private individuals.”[116]
Similarly, Honduras is a state with high levels of murders against LGBT people
and others, and low levels of investigation. The Special Rapporteur recognized
that “Guatemala is not a failed state and is not an especially poor
State.”[117]
Neither is Honduras and, like Guatemala, Honduras bears international
responsibility for a police and a judicial system that fails particular groups
of people.

The UN mechanisms have also addressed the right to
freedom of expression for human rights organizations working on defending the
human rights of lesbian gays, bisexual, and transgender people considering
“that all citizens, regardless of, inter alia, their sexual orientation,
have the right to express themselves, and to seek, receive and impart
information.”[118]

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), states that acknowledging systemic and
entrenched discrimination is an essential step in implementing guarantees of
non-discrimination and equality and changing such roles. An aim of CEDAW is to
"modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with
a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and other
practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of
either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women."[119]

The Inter American
System

Protections for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The American Convention on Human Rights (American
Convention) includes provisions on the right to privacy and equal protection
that have been interpreted to cover sexual orientation and gender identity.[120]
Similar provisions on equality and privacy have been so interpreted by other
regional and domestic jurisdictions.[121]

The principles of equality and
non-discrimination are deeply rooted in the American Convention and protected
by it. Equality is understood as encompassing not only as equal
treatment, but also policies tailored to address the specific needs of
particular groups in certain circumstances.[122] For instance, the
Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has stated the importance of
developing affirmative action programs or granting preferential treatment
through the law in order to protect specific groups.[123]

The IACHR has also emphasized the role of
judicial systems in protecting and ensuring the rights to equality and
non-discrimination. It has stressed that judicial systems should provide people
with effective investigations of violations to their rights in order to
maintain the trust of the people in the government institutions.[124]

The IACHR has addressed sexual orientation
and gender identity in two cases. Marta Lucia Alvarez Giraldo v Colombia concerned
the refusal of Colombian prison authorities to allow a woman to have an
intimate visit with her imprisoned partner. Colombia argued before the IACHR
that “allowing homosexuals to receive intimate visits would affect the
internal disciplinary regime of prison establishments and that Latin American
culture has little tolerance towards homosexual practices in general.”[125] The
case was settled before the IACHR decided on the merits but is nonetheless
significant in that the IACHR deemed the case admissible under the right to
privacy.[126]

Karen Atala and daughters v Chile is the most recent case found admissible by the IACHR involving
issues of sexual orientation. The petitioners argued that Chile violated the
rights of Karen Atala and her three daughters when the Fourth Chamber of the
Supreme Court, on May 31, 2004, awarded permanent custody of Atala’s
daughters to their father. In reaching its decision, the Chilean court
determined “that Ms. Atala had put her interests before those of her
daughters when she made the decision to be open about her homosexuality and
began to live with a same-sex partner.”[127]
The case was deemed admissible under article 24 of the American Convention on
the right to equal protection. It is still pending before the IACHR.

Other
Relevant National and Regional Decisions

In 2003, in Van Kuck v Germany, the
Europe Court of Human Rights considered the case of a transsexual woman whose
health insurance company had denied her reimbursement for costs associated with
sex-reassignment surgery. The Court found a violation of the right to respect
for private life; it stated that the insurance company’s decision denied
“the applicant’s freedom to define herself as a female person, one
of the most basic essentials of self-determination.” It also noted that
“the very essence of the Convention being respect for human dignity and
human freedom, protection is given to the right of transsexuals to personal
development and moral security.[128]

Other decisions at the European level have
stressed the illegality of discrimination on the grounds of gender identity. In
Goodwin v United Kingdom as well as I v. United Kingdom, the
European Court of Human Rights held that the United Kingdom’s refusal to
change transgender individual’s legal identities and papers to match
their post-operative genders violated their right to respect for their private
lives.[129]

National courts have gone further to
protect gender identity as an essential part of human dignity. In a 2006
decision, the Supreme Court of South Korea ruled in favor of a transsexual
individual’s right to change her name and sex on her legal documents. The
Court held that “transsexuals’ human dignity is protected by the
Korean Constitution and that maintaining transsexuals’ original sex
designation in the register compromises that right to dignity.”[130]

In 2008, the Nepal Supreme Court studied a
petition by Blue Diamond Society, an LGBT organization in Nepal. The group
sought the protection of the state in guaranteeing equality and freedom from
violence. The court recognized the petitioners’ right to be protected
against discrimination based on gender identity in all areas of their lives. It
concluded,

As the people with third type of gender
identity other than the male and female and different sexual orientation are
also Nepali citizens and natural person they should be allowed to enjoy the
rights with their own identity as provided by the national laws, the
Constitution and international human rights instruments. It is the
responsibility of the state to create an appropriate environment and make legal
provisions accordingly for the enjoyment of such rights. It cannot be construed
that only “men” and “women” can enjoy such rights
and other people cannot enjoy them solely because they have a different gender
identity and sexual orientation.[131]

The court called on the state to

[c]reate an appropriate environment, enact
legal provisions to enable LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and
intersex] people to enjoy fundamental rights, and amend the new constitution so
as to guarantee nondiscrimination on the grounds of gender identity and sexual
orientation as well as sex, in line with the Bill of Rights of the Constitution
of South Africa.

[4]
Tegucigalpa reported 3,574 murders in 2007 and 4,473 killings in 2008 in
Honduras (313 were women and 4,160 were men). Of the total, 735 took place in
San Pedro Sula, 675 in Tegucigalpa, and 262 in La Ceiba. The remaining 2,801 took
place outside the capital cities.

[6] “Interim
report of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary
executions,” A/57/138, July 2. 2002 (accessed April 2, 2009).

[7] Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Special
Rapporteur Ms.Asma Jahangir,Mission to Honduras, (Fifty-ninth session, 2002),
E/CN.4/2003/3/Add.2, para. 68, http://www.scribd.com/doc/12681097/UN-Special-Rapporteur-Asma-Jehangir-Report-on-India (accessed on April 23, 2009); Special Rapporteur on
violence against women, its causes and consequences, Addendum Communications
to and from Governments, E/CN.4/2005/72/Add.1, March 18, 2005, para. 180
(accessed on April 23, 2009).

[8]
Centro de Investigación y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos (CIPRODEH),
Shadow Report on Honduras Progress in the Compliance of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, August 2004 (on file with Human
Rights Watch).

[15] Law on Police and Social Affairs, article 5.
Article 1 also requires that police “safeguard the fulfillment of the
laws and regulations that aim to protect the life, honor, well-being and
beliefs of the people; maintain public order…; restore domestic
order…; [and] preserve public morality [and] health as well as historical
and cultural heritage.”

[18]
See Report of the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II),
Istanbul, June 3-14, 1996, A/CONF.165/14, paras. 53-241 (1996). In the United
States such laws violate the eighth amendment. See Robisnson
v California, 370 US 660 (1962).

[21] A 2005 report by the Mexican National Commission to
Prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED) found that over 75 cities in Mexico had
regulations on “public morals.” It also found that in some states
police used these laws disproportionately against LGBT people. See Immigration
Board of Canada, “Issue Paper Mexico: Situation of Witnesses to Crime and
Corruption, Women, Victims of Violence and Victims of Discrimination based on
Sexual Orientation,”
http://www2.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/research/ndp/ref/index_e.htm?docid=291&cid=0&sec=CH05
(accessed April 28, 2009); See Colectivo Homosexual de Argentina, “Report
on the Legal Situation of the LGBTI Community” (on file with Human Rights
Watch).

[22]See Juzgado Correccional de Necochea, Buenos Aires
Province, Case No. 4493, Gustavo Fabián, September 2006,
http://www.derechopenalonline.com/derecho.php?id=30,447,0,0,1,0, whereby the
court declared article 72 of Law-Decree 8031/73 unconstitutional. Article
72 included drunkenness in a public place as a contravention sanctioned with a
fine and arrest of up to 40 days. According to the court, “the State
cannot impose upon the rest of society a moral model that individuals must
follow.” Meanwhile, the Colombian Constitutional Court has held
that public morals laws should be analyzed under a strict proportionality
study. “Therefore, only if the end truly corresponds to a principle of
public morals and if it is useful, necessary and strictly proportional to its
end, would the law be constitutional.” It added, “criminal
sanctions that limit personal liberty cannot be founded exclusively on the
defense of public morals principles.” Such laws that predicate themselves
on an appeal to public morals but fail to recognize superior constitutional
principles are unconstitutional. See Decision C-404/98, Colombian
Constitutional Court, August 10, 1998, pgs. 32-34.

“The Committee considers that,
in particular, the rules on public morals can grant the police and judges
discretionary power which, combined with prejudices and discriminatory
attitudes, can lead to abuse against this group (arts. 2, 11 and 16),”
http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G08/428/93/PDF/G0842893.pdf?OpenElement,
para. 11 (accessed April 29, 2009).

[27]
See CAT, Conclusions and recommendations of the Committee against Torture:
Egypt, CAT/C/CR/29/4, December 23, 2002, para. 6: “The Committee
recommends that the State party: … (k) Remove all ambiguity in
legislation which might underpin the persecution of individuals because of
their sexual orientation.”

[30]
Sex work is not illegal in Honduras and there are no regulations in place of
places where people may or may not engage in sex work.

[31]Nicholas
Toonen v Australia, 50th Sess., Communication No. 488/1992, CCPR/c/50/D/488/1992,
April 14, 1994, para 8.7. In the 1994 case of Nicholas Toonen v Australia,
the UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with and adjudicates
violations under the ICCPR, heard a complaint concerning a “sodomy
law” punishing consensual, adult homosexual conduct in the Australian
state of Tasmania. The Committee held that “sexual orientation” was
a status protected under the ICCPR from discrimination, finding that “the
reference to ‘sex’ in articles 2, paras. 1, and 26 is to be taken
as including sexual orientation.”

[39]The
DNIC was formerly known as the General Bureau for Criminal Investigation
(DGIC). Its name changed in November 2008.

[40]Human
Rights Watch interview with Ambrosio Ordoñez, Chief of Metropolitan
Police in Tegucigalpa, Tegucigalpa, February 23, 2009; General Police
Commissioner Mirna Suazo, oral presentation at the First National Congress
of Trans People on Human Rights and Universal Access, December 5, 2008. The
curriculum includes a human rights module based on a guidebook by the
nongovernmental organization CIPRODEH. CIPRODEH recently developed an
additional publication focusing on discrimination, the Non Discrimination in
Police Actions: Protection for the Rights of Homosexuals, but it is yet to
be included in the curriculum.[40]
The publication is flawed. It focuses on gay men, leaving aside other
identities.

[42]
The description given of a flamboyant gay, in some cultures would be considered
a transgender person, thus merging somehow sexual orientation and gender identity.

[43]Human Rights Watch interview, Deilin, San Pedro Sula,
December 4, 2008. Deilin’s use of “sexual orientation” shows
once again the continuum between the terms sexual orientation and gender
identity.

[49]In Tegucigalpa
transgender people engage in sex work near CEUTEC University, Hotel Maya, in
Barrio Guacerique, and around the Obelisco. The Hotel Maya is in central
Tegucigalpa and is considered to be close to the tourist zone. Barrio
Guacerique and the Obelisco are in Comayaguela, a small town across the river
to the south of Tegucigalpa. In San Pedro Sula they work along Boulevard
Morazán, near the center of town, but most are relegated to “El
Tamarindo,” a district south of the railway tracks, and other outlying
areas, like the store Diunsa.

[52]Human Rights Committee, General Comment 20, Article 7 (Forty-fourth
session, 1992), Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations
Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, HRI\GEN\1\Rev.1 at 30 (1994).The Human
Rights Committee is the United Nations body charged with monitoring
implementation of the ICCPR. See also Convention against Torture, article 1
(defining torture to include intentional acts that cause severe physical pain
or mental suffering).

[53]Report of the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture and other
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, U.N. General Assembly,
A/56/156, July 3, 2001, Section IIA (finding that fear of physical torture may
constitute mental torture, and that serious and credible threats to the
physical integrity of the victim or a third person can amount to cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment, or even to torture, especially when the victim is in
the hands of law enforcement officials).

[54]Convention against Torture, article 15.See also Body of
Principles for the Protection of All Persons Under Any Form of Detention or
Imprisonment, principle 21

[55] Article 33 (15) of the National Police Organic Law
prohibits “taking advantage of a hierarchy position to induce,
abuse or engage in relations of sexual character.”,

[61]Human
Rights Watch interview, Lisa, San Pedro Sula, December 18, 2008. “A few
days before that, [November 2008] members of the national preventive police
found me with a client in a vacant lot. They started to beat me up and wanted
to take me in the patrol car. They told me that I should have oral sex with
them, to be let go. There were six of them, so I had to say yes and gave them
all oral sex.”

[79] Ibid., see IGLHRC, “Honduras: New Arbitrary
Detentions. This Time Victims are Travesti People,”July
12, 2007,
http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/article/takeaction/globalactionalerts/439.html.
Claudia initiated a claim before the Office of the Attorney General, Case No.
0501-2007-05367, October 9, 2007, in file with Human Rights Watch.

[86]Article
41 of the law states that “[p]olice are obliged to provide, without delay,
support to every person in urgent need of assistance to protect their life and
honor, property, home inviolability, personal liberty and tranquility.”
Article 39(2) includes the obligation on police to “prevent the imminent
or actual commission of a crime or police infraction.”

[87]
Amnesty International, “Zero Tolerance … on Impunity: Extrajudicial
executions of children and young people since 1998,” AMR 37/001/2003/s,
February 23, 2003,
http://www.amnesty.org/es/library/asset/AMR37/001/2003/es/179e66d4-d752-11dd-b024-21932cd2170d/amr370012003es.pdf
(accessed April 20, 2009).

[89]See
CAT, Articles 11 and 12; American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture,
Article 8; Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Special Rapporteur Nigel
Rodley, submitted pursuant to resolution 2000/43, E/CN.4/2001/66 , January 25,
2001 (accessed April 30, 2009), para. 1310, for the requirement of impartiality
in any investigation.

[90]
See IACHR “Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Mexico”,
September 24, 1998, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.100, par. 3233, on how the lack of
independence negatively impacts impartiality. This is confirmed in Marritza
Urrutia v Guatemala, par. 119.

[92]Ibid., Office of the Attorney General, Center for
Reception of Claims, Case No. 0801-2008-36722 (on file with Human Rights
Watch). Human Rights Watch asked prosecutors about this case, but it was not in
their files.

[99]According
to testimonies by other rights activists, three unknown men in a blue car shot
Cynthia Nicole in a drive-by shooting in Barrio Guacerique in Comayaguela, a
town just outside Tegucigalpa. She received three shots in the chest and one in
the head. Human Rights Watch interview, Indyra Mendoza, Tegucigalpa, February
16, 2009.

[107]“Report
of the Special Rapporteur on the Question of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman
and Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” UN General
Assembly, A/56/156, July 3, 2001, (accessed April 1, 2009).

[108]“Report of the Special Rapporteur on the
Question of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment,”
UN General Assembly, A/56/156, July 3, 2001 (accessed April 1, 2009).

[109]“Report of
the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,”
E/CN.4/2004/56, December 23, 2003 (accessed April 1, 2009).